I brought my car to inspection today with my budget y and intake installed i compared the sheet with the one from a couple months ago when it was inspected in connecticut (stock)and the levels were pretty much the same with the stock pipe and aftermarket pipe except the hc levels were much higher with the budget y-pipe. Does hc stand for hydro carbon or something? Also what were your hc levels with the aftermarket y-pipe installed,thanks? Also is there anything else that would make me have high hc levels?

 

Yeah, HC is hydrocarbons. A few guys in the Toronto area ran emissions tests on their cars after installing Budget's y-pipe. Do a search using budget and emissions, you should be able to find those posts. Unfortunately, the search function requires key words to be at least 3 characters so "HC" won't cut it. I think Jime posted some numbers.

 

By the way i passed everthing well within the limits except the hc was close one. What exactly is a hydro carbon and why is it produced in the exhaust?

 

a hydrocarbon is basically a hydrogen atom(s) bonded with a carbon atom, which gives a hydrocarbon molecule...methane is an example as well as the carbohydrates u eat. The emmissions your car let out are basically what your engine burns, and from the additon of heat to fuel and oxygen, there is combustion and this leads to gaseous molecules which is catalyzed by your catalic convertor into a mixture that is emmitted from your exhaust and majority of that mixture can be viewed as being hydrocarbons...there is H20 gas, which has hydrogen and oxygen, and there is carbon monoxide ( CO ), which is carbon and oxygen...and these come together as a single gaseous mixture which can be classified technically as a hydrocarbon mixture, as are most natural organic products you find on earth.
A simple day in the world of chemistry.

 

Here are a couple threads with emissions numbers posted:

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....emissions+test

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....emissions+test

It looks as though HC and NOx counts jumped the most with the Budget pipe.